He Says He's Just A Friend

Chapter 32 - All You Need Is Love

- Clay -

Tears cascaded down my face, hot and salty and never-ending, as I drove home. I couldn't stay there. In that house. With Emmett talking to Duke. Saying all those things. I shouldn't have been eavesdropping. I knew that. It was wrong. But I froze in the middle of the living room the second I heard Emmett say, "Translation: you're horny."

That shattered something inside me. The word heartbroken had never made so much sense to me before. I imagined a glass sculpture of a heart (not an anatomical heart, but one of those cartoony commercialized Valentine ones) in the place where my actual heart should be. It fractured each time Emmett proved he didn't want me. Surely there were enough cracks now that it was irreparably damaged. Any day now, it would crumble to dust.

I didn't care that my boxers were still damp. I put on my clothes, ready to bolt.

Everything Emmett said pointed to the fact that he wanted Duke. I knew it was over before it ever got a chance to begin. I left as the tears started.

Emmett wanted Duke.

Alfie.

I had to stop fighting the fact that this would never happen. Emmett would never be mine.

If I were thinking clearly, I would've gone around the side of my house to my private entrance to avoid being seen. But I wasn't. So I didn't. Instead, I rushed in through the front door, past my mother in the kitchen. Flinging my bedroom door shut, I collapsed on the bed and buried my face in a pillow, hoping it would muffle the sounds of my sobbing. I couldn't believe I almost confessed everything to him. My feelings, my fantasies, my hopes for what we could be.

There was a knock on the door.

I shouted, "I'm not hungry." My voice sounded so heavy and hoarse.

The door creaked as it opened. I raised my head and said, "I told you, I'm not hungry."

"It's a good thing it's not time to eat then," Mom quipped.

I didn't have the strength to muster a fake laugh at her stupid joke. "Can you please leave me alone?"

Mom sat beside me on the edge of the bed and laid a hand on my forehead. "Are you feeling sick again?"

"I'm fine. Just go." I sounded so desperate, even to my own ears.

"Clayton, what's wrong?"

"Ugh!" I hated my given name. I'd been Clay since I was five years old. No one called me Clayton. Except my mom when I was in trouble, pulling out the triple-barrel-name-drop for effect.

My mother must've thought this a serious occasion to drop a "Clayton" on me.

"You can tell me anything." She stroked her fingers through my hair. "I will love you no matter what."

My eyes went wide as all the air escaped my lungs. I stared at the red and black checks on my bedspread. "What?"

She couldn't know the truth. There was no way. I was just projecting my issues onto her motivations.

She moved on to rub circles on my back. "Just talk to me. I'm worried about you."

"I'm not sick anymore." I hoped that would be enough to get her to leave.

It wasn't.

"You should take one of your pills." Mom grabbed the orange pill bottle off the nightstand and fished out a single pill.

This wasn't a panic attack. I'd had enough of those to know the difference. But it could easily turn into one if I didn't calm down. So, I accepted the pill from her hand and dry swallowed it as a precaution.